The Region Race & a gift from God

So this past Saturday we had our region race in Grinnell, Iowa.  We got to go down on Friday and stayed until Sunday, so it was a fun weekend and we had some good team bonding time for our last full team race.  There were some really good things about the race and some not-so-good things.  The best thing was...I made it to Nationals!!  The worst thing was that our team got 8th place.  We were hoping to make it as a team and improve on our 4th place finish from last year, but it was not to be.  Thankfully, I finally had a good race!!  I got 15th place overall, with a time of 22:36.  I felt like I actually pushed in the middle of the race, which I feel like I haven't done the past few races, especially at Conference.

After the race we were waiting for results and found out that we weren't going as a team because we got 8th.  Then we figured out that I would be the 7th individual if they took 5 teams from our region and I would make it.  I feel like it was really a huge God-thing that I made it because so many little things had to line up just right.  There actually ended up being a tie for 4th place, and if St. Thomas hadn't been the team to get 6th after they broke the tie, I wouldn't have made it.  Also, if they had picked any less than 5 teams from our region, I wouldn't have made it.  Finally, I only beat the person behind me (my teammate Kristin) by 2 seconds so that was a pretty close margin.  But all of these things happened the way they needed to and I made it!  It was definitely a bummer to not have the team go, and Kristin was the first person to miss out.  But luckily, both of the seniors from our team, me and Marie Borner (the individual champion) are going to nationals.  Also, Dan Greeno from the men's team won his first Region championship and will be making the trip with us.  So I am really excited for this upcoming weekend.  We are leaving on Wednesday and will be gone until Sunday so it will be an extra long weekend!  And someone expects me to do other work right now when so much is coming up...I guess I'll try to focus for a bit :)